Cryptography is an important feature of modern computing systems, as it allows communication to occur without fear of eavesdropping. However, there are various degrees of cryptography, some of which are more robust and reliable than others. The Federal government has established certain standards regarding acceptable cryptographic algorithms. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has circulated the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publications 140-1 and 140-2 (generally, FIPS 140) to promulgate these standards.
The FIPS 140-2 standard establishes a Cryptographic Module Validation Program to validate that particular cryptographic modules are accredited as being in compliance with FIPS 140-2 standards. Conventional management applications that implement the Cryptographic Module Validation Program, only permits certain cryptographic methods to be used for sensitive information to the exclusion of less robust cryptographic methods. Both hardware and software modules can be validated to be FIPS 140-2 compliant.